i guess i have a call
by mistspinner
Summary: There are no Evangelions, Angels, or Impacts. The children aren't much better. CW for canon-compliant mental health issues, but with the hope of eventual healing.


Quotes from Sylvia Plath's _Daddy,_ _Lady Lazarus,_ and _Widow._

* * *

They sit in a bright, bright room, four figures facing each other and one translucent figure in the middle of the circle of the chairs, floating several feet above the floor.

"Hello," the smiling, purple-haired woman says. "My name is Misato Katsuragi."

"Hello," Shinji Ikari says, voice soft.

"Fuck off," Asuka Langley Sohyru says.

Rei Ayanami says nothing.

The white-haired boy, because even the dead do not escape etiquette, smiles and says in his way, Hello.

* * *

00

 _Dying_

 _Is an art, like everything else_

 _I do it exceptionally well_

* * *

They find Rei on a bathroom floor, blood pooling from the back of her head, reaching across the white tiles, like the arms of some grasping sea creature. Behind her, the sound of the running tap is a steady susurrus, the water flowing out of the stark bathtub lapping at her ankles like tentative waves.

When they ask her after (after: after they have scrubbed the blood from the tiles, pumped the water out of her lungs, checked for vital signs and brain damage) – when they ask her then, what happened, why she did it or what she was trying to accomplish, she says nothing.

* * *

The first time Rei Ayanami tries to kill herself, she is eight.

She did not mean to do it—that is what she tells them later, that is what is the psychologists will list on her file, and it is, in a sense, true. Eight years old, she could not have known what death was; eight years old, and she could not have known what would happen if she were to walk into the waters, let her head sink under the waves and stop breathing. If they were to ask her (and they did, asked her question after question when she was finally conscious), Rei would have told them that she was curious; that she had wondered what would happen if she did it, simply walked out into the river waters and let herself stay under.

It had been quiet under, she would have told them; peaceful in the way the water filled her lungs, slowly stopped her consciousness to faded blackness. It had been nice, she would have told them, if they would have listened—but they would not have, because Rei Ayanami was eight years old and eight years old mean nothing to adults with hard hands and eyes soft enough to be shocked. They would let her speak, Rei knows, but they would not listen. She knows that, as sure as she knows anything.

And so, eight years old and pale as the sheets they wrap her in, Rei stays silent all the way to the hospital. They do not know what to do with her: not the doctors nor the psychologists nor her caseworkers, and certainly not the hapless young couple who had only wanted a young girl to help raise but had gotten such an alien creature instead.

And then Gendo Ikari arrives, a briefcase full of yen in one hand and a sheath of documents in the other, and suddenly she is not their problem anymore.

* * *

Misato Katsuragi is a slight, pretty woman with long legs and a kind, open face. She wears short skirts and has purple hair and is quick to smile, nod, offer outward signs of compassion.

She is the first psychologist Rei meets, and after a week during which Rei sits silent and unresponsive in Dr. Akagi's office, she takes Rei's case on.

They meet twelve to one three times a week, sunlight filtering in through the curtains of the small, blue-wallpapered room. Misato asks question—the same questions Dr. Akagi had asked: how are you, how do you feel. She is better at it than Dr. Akagi was, asking her question more gently and less directly, but they are the same questions nonetheless.

Rei says nothing, though she will occasionally nod or shake her head. Two weeks into therapy, Misato gives her a small board, and—on occasion, at Misato's request—she will write on it, short phrases that body language cannot convey. Dr. Akagi always looks faintly incredulous whenever she sees her using it, but there is nothing extraordinary about it; she has no special affection for the woman, but Rei has been trained to respond to questions and she does not want to make Misato's job harder than it is. Misato herself Rei feels only mild curiosity towards, a faint desire to puzzle out what is underneath her soft smiles and considerate concern. The doctors like Dr. Akagi, with their clipped questions and cold, clinical touches, she knows; she has, after all, lived with them all her life. It is the ones like Misato—like Misato and Maya and all the other too-young, too-kind staff here at Bethany Bay—that Rei, no matter how she tries, cannot understand.

When they ask her (and they always do, Dr. Akagi and Misato), she says nothing because, really, what is there to say? They know her story, have seen the police reports and psych evaluations. They've read NERV's files, hidden in the recesses of Gendo Ikari's lab; in all likelihood, they know more about it than Rei herself does. The house had been empty, the air still and silent. Gendo and all the scientists had been gone for the last three days.

And the house—it had just been so quiet, a low whir-whir-whir of machines and no person in sight, and Rei had been left alone before but never for this long. Usually there would be at least someone—if not in the same room as her, then nearby, the tap of shoes on tiles a reminder that no matter how long this current trial lasted, air just a few degrees too warm or unending darkness day and night or injections that made her shiver and be sick, it would be over eventually, soon. The doors would open and there would be light again, there would be people again, Gendo would cradle her head between his hands and tell her that it was alright, she'd been so good, done so very very well.

But Gendo did not come. And Rei, after several hours of waiting, had tested the door of the room she was in and, finding it unlocked, quietly walked outside.

It was a large house. She had always known that, but even after all this time, six years living within its walls, she had never quite felt how many rooms there were and how spacious they were, how empty. For a few moments, she had stood in the hallway for a while, paralyzed by all the uncharted space before her.

And then, because was too quiet and still and, try as she might, she could hear no one coming, she had taken a step forward, padding the familiar steps to the hallway bathroom. Walking to the sink, Rei had opened one tap, then the other; and then, when the water had lapped at her feet and the only sound had been the susurrus of the taps running, she had stepped into the bathtub and let her head go under the waters.

That was what had happened. That was how it had happened. The police had found her two hours later, arrested four members of NERV the next day. And now she was here. And that was it. Those were all the facts, laid out flat and clear. What else, really, was there to know?

* * *

But still they ask her. Three times a week, they place her in a small room with low lamplight and baby-blue walls, and they—Misato, Dr. Akagi, Maya, Makoto, it doesn't matter—sit across from her and again and again ask the same questions:

 _Can you tell me what happened? What were you feeling?_

And Rei says nothing, because what is there to say? Besides, if she keeps silent, they will stop asking sooner or later; that is how it has been before, with every other adult she has met.

But they don't. Rei sits in the blue room and they sit across from her and they ask and they ask and they ask—

 _How do you feel?_

 _What do you want?_

And Rei, because she does not know what to say, says nothing at all.

* * *

01

 _I used to pray to recover you_

* * *

Shinji has a method of doing it, a special way of passing the insomniac nights when moon is too bright and the buzzing of the cicadas too angry for sleep. When all the thoughts cram together, one-two-three jamming until the breath catches in his throat, he knows what to do. Reaching in his book bag, inside his desk, under his pillow, Shinji will pull it out—a sheet of newspaper or a scrap of wrapping paper, small, pre-cut, precise squares of color—and, with fingers trembling, go through the familiar motions.

Fold it in half horizontally, creasing the paper to make the lines crisp. Open the paper up; do it again, the other way around. Open it up. Do it vertically, both ways. Open it up. Fold it over again.

He does not remember who taught him, first—if it had been his mother who had first guided his fingers through familiar motions, before hers had become too weak to do so, or his teacher, or even Gendo, though even in his best moments Shinji doubts that last one. Still, it makes it a little easier to think that; makes it a little more real, the fantasy that dogs each paper he hoard, each fold he makes.

Someone—long ago, before he had even been old enough to fold the paper—had told him the legend: about magic and cranes and paper, how—if you tried hard enough, made a thousand ones—then your wish would come true.

With each thousand cranes he makes, his father will be another step closer to him. And when he reaches one million, his father will be there, one thousand steps and an ocean to be back.

Shinji knows that will never happen, that Gendo Ikari will never take his son back even if Shinji made a million million cranes, but he likes to try, anyway.

* * *

Things are different, here.

Shinji knows, logically, that this is an obvious thing, part-and-parcel of being here, in Bethany Bay and not the real world. And it is obvious, obvious from the moment he walks in, from the guards standing at each door, the orderlies prowling the hallways each night and the reams of forms he had filled out on his first day here—suicide contracts, consent forms, signing over his rights until such time his doctors deemed him fit to leave.

And yet, with all that, it is the small things that stand out.

Curfew is ten thirty, lights off at eleven thirty, though the guards will let you wander the halls after hours so long as you do not stay long. Doors are never locked and, save for a few dusty riot-proof rooms in the basement, cannot be. There are locks on the window, and all glass is bulletproof. Unless you are from the eating disorder ward, arrival at meals is not mandatory, but failure to sign-in to morning attendance will lead to someone being sent to check in on you. There are locks on the windows, and all glass is bulletproof.

Jewelry is not allowed. Belts are not allowed. For obvious reasons (and much to Asuka's constant kvetching), shaving razors are not allowed. Headphones are allowed, but never after night, even though Asuka says that it is physically impossible to hang yourself with them, tensile strength not high enough to hold the weight of a human body. Shinji does not know whether this is true or not, but he knows in any case that he would have never thought of it. Killing himself by any method just sounds like so much effort, and Shinji is just so very tired these days.

He doesn't mind the restrictions, for the most part. It is different, yes, but Bethany Bay it is a place like any other. He does find it rather inconvenient that they are not allowed scissors, even in art therapy—too afraid the patients ( _inmates_ Asuka calls them) have them, too afraid the blades will do damage, become unwitting accomplices to broken skin and slit veins—but that too is alright. Shinji has practice and Shinji has paper, and so with years of practice, he folds napkins and MAO brochures, pushing the lines down with one fingernail and gently pulling the edges away almost smooth as if they had been cut with scissors. Working on automatic, muscle memory, his fingers move through the squares, opening and creasing down the paper into small, neat shapes.

"Those are pretty," Maya says, sitting down next to him one day in art therapy. "Wishing for anything in particular?"

Shinji shrugs, gaze on the paper between his fingers. He does not answer.

* * *

From the outside, Bethany Bay looks like a prison. Or at least that is what Asuka likes to say, especially when Misato or Dr. Akagi are in earshot, but that doesn't make it completely untrue, either. Bethany Bay is a plain building, no ornamentation save the tiny windows set into the tan-gray walls. The architect who designed it had apparently been quite renowned, and it shows, in a brutal, modern art way; the best Shinji has come to mentally describing it is as a series of cubes stacked together, the overall effect that of one large cube from which rectangles of wall are occasionally missing, as though removed by some granite-eating monster. The inside is little better, the lights overbright and the hallways smelling clinical and cold, as they do in all hospitals. It is not an inviting building, but it is quiet; and it is here, on one of the identical beds in one of the identical rooms of Bethany Bay, that Shinji wakes up, and stares forward in the dark.

Across him, on the hospital-issued dresser, the clock says 6:30. Half an hour before the morning staff arrive, an hour until the cafeteria opens. Two and a half hours before Doctor Akagi comes on her rounds, dispensing medication and asking about their moods as she taps her pen against her clipboard. Three weeks here, and Shinji already has the schedule memorized, more or less. Breakfast at eight, check-ins at nine, lunch at twelve. Group therapy at 10:30, the rest of the unit still yawning into wakefulness around them as Misato flips to a new page in her notebook, smiles and asks them how they are.

Shinji lies in bed, letting the comfort of routine wash off him and willing the moment to last. Outside, the grass in the yard is yellowing and the leaves on the trees quiver when the wind blow. Several student scuffle past, dressed in scarves and matching school jackets; their breath ghosts in the air as they laugh, heads low and close. It is almost fall now, Shinji realizes with a start.

When it had happened, it had still been summer, the tail end of August when the heat hung slow and hazy in the still air. They had been at a hotel, at Shirahama; they went every year, his teacher saying the hot springs helped his arthritis, and wouldn't Shinji like to go swimming while he waited, too?

Shinji hadn't. But his teacher had smiled when he had told him yes, smiled and patted him on the head before telling him to have fun, go get himself some ice cream or something, alright?

And then he had gone, and Shinji had stood there, a handful of yen in clutched in his palm and no one he knew for miles and miles.

It was a nice beach. Shirahama had nice beaches; it was the reason people came to it, a thousand thousand tourists each summer, wallets full and stomachs lurching over waistlines, visitors from all over Japan and far across the ocean. And as Shinji had slowly circled the length of the sand, they seemed to all be here at once: shrieking couples and local teenagers, groups of visiting businessmen and families of blue-eyed tourists, filling every space of the pale sands—so so many of them, faces faces faces voices _voices_ _voices_ —

So so _many_ of them _._ So so many of them.

But when he stepped into the water, when he closed his eyes and focused, then all he could hear were the waves, the waves, waves crashing stead and faint against the shore.

 _Mother,_ he had thought hazily, absurdly, for his mother was a blurred-glass image in his mind, a hazy recollection of soft hands and hospital beds that had never had time to sharpen into some kind of shape. _Father,_ he had thought, and had thought of the distance between them, the kilometers and lengths of clear, cold water. _Father,_ he had thought, and had taken another step in.

When they come for Shinji Ikari, he does not protest, does not struggle; only lets them reach under his arms, gently lift him up and out, and take him from the water.

When they tell him in the hospital – gently, gently, like talking to a rabbit about to bolt – that they will have to transfer him to someplace else, a hospital with the words "Intensive Care" over it, he does not argue against it, does not protest it. Only sits there, lets the words wash over him like the crashing of the waves, like the softest, sweetest death he had not had.

* * *

02

 _There is a charge_

 _For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge_

 _For the hearing of my heart—_

* * *

Asuka Langley Sohyru is not crazy.

They never tell her that per se, not in those exact words, but Asuka can read between the lines of the clean labels the doctors place on her. _Suicidal ideation, mood swings, borderline personality disorder_ —it's all a bunch of crap, fancy words for the same thing underneath it all. Asuka has never been stupid, and she knows what they are saying when they glance at her and whisper and scratch marks on their clipboards. She knows what they are saying and it makes her furious because they are _wrong._

Because Asuka is not crazy.

Someone who is crazy could have never done the things she's done, could have been half the person Asuka is. Asuka is _driven._ Asuka is _fierce._ Asuka speaks three languages and is learning two more and is working on a _degree,_ a fucking college degree at age fourteen, when most brats are too busy playing World of Warcraft to even think about higher education. Asuka is "undeniably talented" (career counselor); Asuka is "remarkably intelligent" (high school German teacher); Asuka is "incredibly mature for her age" (former college professor, the one with such charming scruples about not sleeping with minors); and so, for all these reasons and more, Asuka is not—cannot be—crazy.

And okay, maybe there was that time she drank too much and tried to blow her TA, and okay, maybe she'd once decked a guy for trying to hit on her, nearly breaking his jaw for a fratboy joke—but fuck, that was normal college shit, not the stuff that got you shipped off to some asylum. And perhaps there was that time with the bathtub, curtains drawn and the dorm too too quiet, suffocating her with its silence, but that was an isolated incident, that was nothing, that proved nothing, do you hear? Do you fucking _hear?_

Because Asuka is not crazy.

And so Asuka does not – does not, she repeats, whispering the words to herself as she clutches her hospital-regimented blanket in the dark – need therapy.

* * *

It takes three days before they make the decision to transfer her to Bethany Bay, and when they do, Asuka is furious.

She's furious most days now and for a wide array of reasons. She's furious at the nurses, with their cool hands and plastic shoes, who continue to smile at and talk to her like she's all of five fucking years old. She's furious at Hikari for finding her in the bathtub, even more for telling Asuka to get help and then ratting out to the counselors when Asuka told her to fuck off. She's furious at the doctors for taking three days to come to a conclusion about what to do with her because what the fuck, that was incompetence on an extreme level, what if she's fucking died during that time because she couldn't get the correct treatment, huh? She's furious at her father, for leaving her mother while she was still alive, and with her caseworker, for pawning her off onto the first foster parent she could find, a fresh-out-of-school lawyer with stupid floppy hair and a soft smile—Ryoji Kaji, Kaji with his calloused palms and sympathetic brown eyes as he told her that perhaps they should spend some time apart.

Most of all, she is furious at herself—herself for letting all this happen in the first place, for not saying anything when she first saw her father kissing her mother's doctor, for packing off to college when Kaji told her she should, for giving into the impulse that led to this situation in the first place, that temporary moment of _what-if_ that had led her to make the first cut.

She's angry at everything and everyone, and the anger is a comforting, familiar rage. And so she screams and she fights, tearing her clothes and clawing at the nurses when they come to sedate her, thrashing and biting until she draws blood—

And they take her away on Thursday, three days after she arrives.

* * *

Asuka walks into group therapy, and she immediately hates everyone there.

She hates them all: the shivering, dark-haired boy; the pale, unmoving girl; the purple-haired woman with the too-short skirt and the falsely cheery smile – and above them all, the silent, smiling apparition in sneakers and jeans. _What are you smiling for?_ she wants to demand of him, but he is dead and the dead do not speak.

She sits in the hard plastic chair because she must, and she wants to scream.

This is wrong. This is wrong and she does not belong here, every cell of her body rebelling against it—this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, a litany of protest until she wants to scream with it. She does not belong here, she does not want to be here. She can't—she wants—she wants to go—

But home is a tricky thing, more distant memory than anything else, and Asuka has never been one to chase after the impossible.

For the first week after she is institutionalized, Asuka refuses to say anything. For seven days, she keeps defiantly silently, refusing to say a word to the coaxing doctors or cajoling child psychologists sent to ask her questions. It goes on like that, seven long days and six long nights, so long that the doctors begin to whisper, talk about marking down _selective mutism_ on her list of co-morbidities, next to _Borderline Personality Disorder_ and _suicidal tendencies._ So long that doctors beginning to whisper, talk about placing her next to Rei.

And then when she finally speaks, it is a brief, caustic phrase, one that will neatly define the rest of Asuka's stay at Bethany Base:

Fuck. Off.

* * *

04

The fourth child says nothing. He cannot, can only sit there and smile his beatific angel's smile, because Kaworu Nagisa is dead.

But they all see him anyway—Rei, Shinji, Misato, even angry Asuka, though she will not admit it to herself—they see him in his faded t-shirt and battered sneakers, the hospital band enormous around one thin wrist, the faint lines decorating the other. They do not want to, but they see him, and so he sits there, smiling like the ghost of things they cannot say.

* * *

00

 _Ash, ash—_

 _You poke and stir._

 _Flesh, bone, there is nothing there—_

* * *

Art therapy is Rei's favorite part of the day.

It isn't that she enjoys it, per se, for enjoyment is simply not a part of the fabric that forms Rei Ayanami. And it is hardly that she is good at it: Gendo and the other researchers had made sure she was educated, an odd mix of classic philosophy and human biology and religious apocrypha, but art had never been among the subjects NERV considered important, and so Rei's skills are rudimentary at best.

But it is relaxing. In art therapy, there is no expectation to share, to speak. In art therapy, none of the questions that usually abound—" _How are you today?" "Well, Rei, what you do think?"_ or that enigmatic and eternal question, " _Do you want to talk about?_ "—are less pressing, unvoiced in favor of free artistic expression.

The art therapist—Maya, a cheerful, pretty woman who could have hardly been much older than her patients—smiles when they enter, waves a hand to tell them to make themselves comfortable. They take their usual spots around the low table—Shinji on the left, Asuka on the right, and Rei directly across from Maya—and Maya smiles, bright as ever, then brings out paper and crayons and tells them what to do.

There is a prompt, of sorts; there always is, about self-perception or emotional awareness or one of the many other phrases the doctors here constantly shuffle through. Rei listens to it, the way she listens to everything here, dutifully but glancingly, the words more a stream of sounds than things. BPD, CBT, ECT, MAO—they all begin to mean the same thing, after a while. Less important what they want than the fact they want.

Today is a family day. Rei watches Maya give instructions, lips opening, forming words and thoughts and assurances. Beside Rei, Shinji's polite blankness turns to polite uncertainty; across from him, Asuka is as silently disdainful as ever, arms crossed her chest as she glares in the other direction.

"So, okay," Maya says, smiling brightly at them all from across the table, "for the first part of this, I want you to draw what your idea of what an ideal family would look like, alright? Fifteen minutes, and then we can go onto the next part!"

Shinji frowns at his paper, as though wanting to ask it a question; but he keeps his grip on his pencil, even as it hovers above the paper. Asuka, still not looking at Maya, leans her elbows on the table as she idly spins her pen.

Rei looks down on the paper and begins to draw.

The other boy—not Shinji, the one with the pale hair and even paler eyes—only stands there, smiling as he watches them.

An ideal family. Rei draws a circle, the beginnings of what she knows that term means, the stories they put in books. That means mother, father, child.

Rei has never had a mother. She has never had a father, except in the loosest sense, and she has never, ever thought of herself as a child. But she knows the words, has seen the pictures from a thousand movies and magazines. She knows the words.

Three circles then, one smaller than the other. Mother, father, child.

* * *

They're beginning the second half of the exercise, Maya handing out crayons and telling them to draw their current family on top of their ideal one, when the door opens and Dr. Akagi walks in.

"Maya," she says, nodding. Her mouth is a thin line, flat and colorless. Behind her, Misato stands in the hallway, arms crossed. "A word, please."

Maya hesitates, glancing around. Around Rei, the other children are looking up, glancing between Maya and Dr. Akagi in open curiosity.

"I'll be just a moment," Maya says, standing up.

Rei keeps her head down, concentrating on coloring the bodies of her stick people family. The tip of her pencil is sharp, and she presses down hard on it, moving in slow, deliberate circles so that the color is dark and even.

"But Ritsuko, sempai, they can't just—"

"It isn't a matter of just one patient, Maya. I agree with you, and if it was just about her—"

"But sempai, it doesn't even make sense, she doesn't even talk to anyone about it here, what makes him think she'll—"

"You see, there, Ritsuko, that's what I've been saying all along—"

They're talking about her, Rei registers faintly. The other children are starting to stare at her, gazes shifting from the door to the quiet girl bent over her drawing. Rei ignores them, only continues coloring. She is used to being talked about, after all.

"Look, Ritsuko, I understand that, but I just don't think it's necessary—the prosecution's full of smart people and it's not like there's lost love between the NPA and NERV, god knows they've been suspicious for ages—"

"But that's just the thing, Misato—they have suspicions, yes, but they don't have proof. And I am not advocating any decision, I'm only relaying what the director's told me, and let me assure you, Fuyutsuki isn't happy either, but I do think it could be cathartic and they've been very insistent, this could the thing that lands Ikari in prison—"

Rei looks up. She glances around, uncertain if what she had just heard what she thinks she did, and she sees the answer in the paleness of Shinji's face, the faint widening of Asuka's eyes.

She stands up. She straightens her paper, placing her pencil over it, taking care to push her seat in behind her. And, all eyes on her, she walks to the door, closing it quietly behind her.

"Excuse me," Rei says, and the sound of her voice seems strange to her ears, rusty, perhaps, from disuse, "what did you say?"

Dr. Akagi turns, the surprise evident in her eyes,

"Oh, Rei," she says, lowering her glasses, "I don't think—"

Misato glances at her, an odd, long look, and Dr. Akagi hesitates.

"Well," she says, shrugging her shoulders, "I think I'll let Misato tell you, won't I?"

Misato looks like she's about to disagree, but Dr. Akagi gives her a look and Misato's lips thin but she says nothing. Turning to Rei with a smile, she walks towards her, steps slow, tentative— _careful_ _,_ Rei thinks. As though after all this, Rei is still something fragile, to be handled gently lest she break.

"Rei," she says, then stops. She glances at Dr. Akagi, then shakes her head, straightens her shoulder as she turns back to Rei. "Your guardian, Gendo Ikari – he's, well, he's been taken into custody."

 _("What happened to you?")_

* * *

01

 _I have always been scared of you,_

 _With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo –_

* * *

They hold a session, afterwards. _A group meeting_ , is how Doctor Akagi refers to it as, though Shinji can see Misato covertly roll her eyes. Misato asks them the usual questions: _what did you think when you learned this, what do you feel about the situation, how are you feeling now._ Doctor Akagi sits nearby, head bent as she marks the answers on a clipboard.

Asuka, as always, is the first to speak.

"I don't care about what stupid Shinji or dumb Rei thinks," Asuka says, tossing her hair. "But this guy sounds like a jerk, and he fucking deserves to be locked up."

"Language," Misato says, more for show than anything—at this point, the staff at Bethany Bay have resigned themselves to their failure to improve Asuka's vocabulary.

Asuka rolls her eyes, but amends, " _freaking_ deserves to be locked up. Bastard."

"Alright," Misato says mildly before turning to Rei. "Rei?" she asks gently. Rei only shrugs, but Misato nods sympathetically nonetheless.

"And you, Shinji?" Misato asks, turning to him. "How are you feeling?"

And Shinji does not know.

* * *

He goes into the music room that evening, in the hour's time between dinner and evening check-in. As usual, no one is inside, nothing there but dark boxes and the silhouette of the upright piano in one corner. Shinji has heard the staff talking about renovating the space, dusting off the unused instruments and selling them off to make space for a dance studio or a meditation room, but so far, no one has been willing to touch anything, and for that, Shinji is pathetically grateful.

He walks inside, stepping his way over the piebald carpet until he reaches the piano, and then he stands there a moment before sitting down against the steady bulk of the piano.

You look sad today.

He shrugs. Shuffles a little in the dark, hugs his knees closer to his chest.

Shinji?

"It's nothing." If he closes his eyes, squeezes them tight enough, then maybe it will not have happened, the whole world go to black.

Above his shoulder, Kaworu hovers. Hesitant. Shinji can feel him there, even with his eyes closed, a soft, cool presence a few inches away.

It's about your father, isn't it. I heard the doctors talking.

"It's fine. It's nothing we didn't expect." Nothing _they_ didn't expect, the barrage of therapists and caseworkers on Rei's files—Shinji has not spoken to his father in over ten years.

Kaworu says nothing for a moment, and Shinji closes his eyes, pretending that he is not there.

I know, Kaworu says finally, voice tentative, that must be difficult for you. It must be painful, and pain is not a thing that people cannot endure for very long. But to shut yourself away from it—to close your heart against pain is to also close yourself against being human, and that is something you cannot do.

"How would you know? You're dead. You killed yourself."

The minute he says the words, he knows he will regret them. They are not true for one—not for all the misplaced guilt that hovers over Bethany Bay, not when it was a ticking time-bomb of a heart that had killed Kaworu and not a ill-placed razor—and more than that, they are cruel. Kaworu has been trying to do nothing but help; Kaworu has been kind, and Shinji knows well how precious a commodity kindness can be. Kaworu has let him into this room when he did not have to, when this is his space, let Shinji in and spoke to him the long, lonely evenings when every second seemed a jagged eternity. Kaworu has been his friend, when friendship has felt like a foreign and impossible quantity. The guilt is immediate and overwhelming, and it is all Shinji can do not to scrabble up and run out of the room.

But Kaworu only smiles, small and soft, no trace of reproof at all.

I did, he says, and I regretted it, when I did. Because to live without suffering—the only way to do that is to not live at all, and that is not something I want for you. And you are right, Shinji Ikari. I do not know your pain, cannot understand the edges of your tragedy. But I would like to understand, Shinji, if you would like to tell me.

* * *

He begins folding, incessantly now.

At dinner, in mornings, before bed and during group therapy; Shinji has pieces of paper in all his pockets now, and wherever he goes, a small trail of paper birds follows in his wake. Maya, watching the cranes pile up, orders more origami paper from the internet, and while he waits for the package to arrive, Shinji tears pages out of the mood journal Maya tells him to keep and turns them into paper stars and roses. When he runs out of paper in the evenings, he begins unfolding the cranes he has already made, tearing the wrinkled paper into squares and from those making four new, smaller birds.

Misato says nothing when she sees him doing it, but he knows that she is concerned. She thinks that it is unhealthy, that he is relapsing, and he struggles with how to tell her that it is not, that right now this—the feel of the paper between his hands, the familiar ritual of up, over, down, repeat—is one of the few things keeping him together.

But Shinji has never been good with words, and so he stays silent and continues folding.

* * *

"Shinji," Misato says one day as they sit in her office, voice low. "I'm concerned. You understand why, don't you?"

Shinji nods. In his lap, his fingers fiddle with a gum wrapper, matching edge to edge before unfolding the square of paper again.

A clatter of feet, outside. "It's nothing," Misato says when Shinji glances at the door. "The director's just having a meeting with someone, don't pay it any mind."

He nods, still not meeting her eyes. Outside, a door opens, shoes squeaking-squeaking on linoleum. The screech of chairs as they are pulled out; the shuffle of paper on wood.

"It's just," Misato says, leaning back, fingers tapping against her teacup lightly, "you've just been so quiet lately, that's all. And I won't push—this is your space, you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, but I worry, Shinji. This is your space, you know, and even if it's hard—even if you think you shouldn't say it or feel it—you can tell me anything. There's no right or wrong way to feel about this, Shinji."

She falls silent then, watching him. She's waiting for him, Shinji knows, giving him time to absorb the words and trust in her. It's kind of her, and he appreciates the offer even as he does not take it.

Over, up, press down to fold. Mountain fold; valley fold. Undo. Repeat, in the other direction.

Across from him, Misato sips her tea, makes some note on her clipboard. Shinji finishes one crane, places it on the armrest of his chair, and reaches in his pocket for another piece of paper.

From the other room, voices float. One of them Shinji recognizes as director Fuyutsuki, a small, white-haired man who always smiles at him in the hallways. His words come fast and loud; he sounds agitated, almost uncharacteristically angry. Against his will, Shinji is curious.

"And Ryoji, I won't insult you by asking if you've thought this through, but tell me, truly, are you sure this is a good idea—"

"Fuyutsuki-san, I understand your reservations," and this is a younger voice, less gravelly and more level, "and I don't doubt that it will be tricky, but right now, we're working with only assumptions and anecdotal evidence. And Ikari has money, he'll have the best lawyers possible, and with just a little less luck or a better defense—"

It's his father. They're talking about his father, right outside the door, mere feet away, and it's suddenly all too much, Shinji's careful calm shattering in one sudden burst.

"Shinji?" And that is Misato's voice, and that is Misato's face, leaning down, her hands gently taking his—

And Shinji cannot speak, and Shinji cannot move, and his hands, oh gods, his hands are shaking so badly, half-finishing cranes tearing between his fingers as he stares with blurry fingers at his hands—

From far away, he hears Misato speaking, saying—"breathe, Shinji, breathe"—and he tries to, he really does, but there is something wrong with the air, some new thinness of oxygen in it, and his lungs feel suddenly so very heavy—

"Hey. Hey," and that is Misato's voice, Misato's hands on the small of his back, "you're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. Shinji—Shinji, c'mon, listen to me, just breathe, okay? Breathe, Shinji. Breathe."

He closes his eyes, focusing on the sound of Misato's voice, the steady cadence of her words. And slowly, his breathing steadies, the dark edges on his vision vanishing as oxygen fills his lungs.

"Okay?"

He nods. Before him, his hands clench and unclench almost automatically, like a rhythm, like a heartbeat.

Misato's hands loosen, but she stays there, kneeling on the ground, and she does not let go.

"What am I supposed to do with these now?" he whispers when he can speak, opening his hands; crumbled paper spills from them, broken patches of red and yellow that drift gently onto the clean linoleum. "I spent so much time – and I thought – I thought –"

Misato says nothing for a moment, merely watches him. Shinji can't make himself look at her face, afraid of what he will find them.

"Well," she says finally, skin soft as she places one arm around him and gently extricates the crooked cranes from his hands, "why don't you wish for something else?"

* * *

02

 _like a prey she'd love to kill_

 _A second time, to have him near again –_

 _A paper image to lay against her heart –_

* * *

When they ask her, Asuka tells Misato she does not care, and really, she does not. Misato asks her, why? and Asuka tells her that the answer is obvious – that it is not her problem, not her quasi-father-figure-whatever who's getting thrown into the slammer—and besides, even if it were her, why would she care, why the fuck would she give a fuck if it'd been her deadbeat asshole of a father in jail?

Then Misato gets that sad-stern look on her face, the type shrinks get when they are sorry for you but do not want to say it, and tells her that she is not sure she believes that.

Asuka wants to spit at her.

It's moments like these that make her hate them all, Misato and Ayanami and Ikari and every other person in Bethany Bay. She hates them the way they are so soft and weak, so fucking fragile and so very, very easily broken—it's just such a stupid situation, and the answer so fucking obvious it is painful. When Asuka found her father undressing her mother's doctor, she hadn't thought twice about walking away and refusing to speak to either of them. It's simple, really: you can only have so many people in your life, and those who do not deserve to be there, you cut out of it. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Asuka has known this since she was four years old, and it astounds her whenever she meets people who don't understand this basic principle.

People, apparently, like the residents of Bethany Bay.

* * *

She's walking to Misato's office when she sees Ayanami there, sitting in one of the waiting room seats with her hands neatly folded in her lap. It's not a shocking sight—they might have different therapy schedules, but Misato's office is adjacent to director Fuyutsuki's and Ayanami's been meeting with caseworkers and lawyers every other day since this whole business began.

Out of boredom or some perverse curiosity, Asuka stops in front of her, hands on her hips as she watches her. Ayanami only sits there, staring ahead at nothing.

"Hey," Asuka says. "He-lloooo," she says, waving a hand in front of her face when Ayanami says nothing, "Earth to Ayanami? Anyone there?"

Ayanami blinks, eyes flicking up to Asuka's for one moment before dropping back to her lap again. For reason, it makes Asuka unspeakably furious—less that Rei is ignoring her than the fact of the non-response, as if after all this she could still be calm, still act as if it was nothing.

"They're going to convict him, you know? Yeah," she says, nodding, "your guardian, Ikari or whatever—same douchebag Misato's always trying to get Shinji to blab about in group, the one all the lawyers and caseworkers coming around for. That fucker. He's going to jail. They've got all the evidence on him, and he's going to jail. You know, jail? J-A-I-L. Yeah, that. Great, right?"

She waits a moment, and when Rei says nothing, Asuka puts one foot on the chair next to Rei and leans forward, so close their noses almost touch.

"Look, you little mute doll," she hisses, "I don't know whatever you or that dumb Shinji cry about to Misato, but guess what? Ikari was an asshole, and you need to stop acting like you owe him jack shit. Fuck, you should be blowing up balloons and breaking out champagne because guess what?" she says, waving her arms through the air. "Ding dong the witch is dead, the old man is fucking gone! Hip hip hooray! You can stop letting him fucking control you already!"

Arms crossed across her chest, throat sore from yelling, she glares down at Ayanami, who only gazes back, eyes blank and unblinking.

"God," Asuka says, taking a step back, "can't you just fucking act like a fucking _person_ for once?"

Ayanami, of course, says nothing.

Asuka walks away.

* * *

Misato asks, because Misato always asks, and how did she feel about that? And Asuka has a barrage of answers ready, a torrent of biting remarks on her tongue—she doesn't care, it isn't her business, she was only curious, trying to see if she could get a response out of Rei—and they're all true, at least partially so.

Misato doesn't say anything, but her disbelief is practically palpable.

Asuka scowls, crossing her arms, and stares pointedly out the window.

Misato changes the subject then, to families.

They talk about families all the fucking time now: in group, in art, in CBT, and Asuka is not stupid; she's read Freud, she knows what they're doing and why they're doing it. It's the typical psych thing to do—tell me about your mother, tell me about your father—and god knows that between Ikari and Ayanami, with their long and Byzantine family histories, they're in need of some serious psychoanalytic lifting around here.

Asuka, however, is different. Asuka is not Dora, some melodrama test case who needs to tested and sutured for Oedipal transference. Perhaps her childhood wasn't exactly perfect, Asuka's not in denial about any of that, but that was a long time ago and she's dealt with it, learned to live with it. Her memories of her father are like a fading bruise, calloused hands and the scent of tobacco and a wedding ring she will always associate with the sagging breasts of her mother's doctor; her memories of her mother even fainter, a mix of child's memory and myth, and that is fine, that is perfectly alright with her. Asuka hasn't needed a family since she was four years ago, and she certainly does not intend to start now.

Misato smiles when she says that, soft and sweet and unbelieving, and Asuka hates her for it so very, very much.

* * *

04

In their rooms, the children sit. Rei, spine straight and face blank as she gazes at the white wall; Asuka, arms folded as she glares out the window; Shinji, eyes closed, hands over the headphones clamped over his ears.

And in the spaces between them, the nebulous space where all ghosts dwell, the fourth child floats over them all and watches.

* * *

Hello, Shinji.

"Why?" Shinji asks. "Why are you still here?"

Kaworu – ghost boy, mute boy, dead boy – says nothing, only leans over, gently reaches his arms around Shinji in a spectral embrace.

He says nothing, but Shinji understands the words nonetheless.

Because you need me to be.

* * *

 _But they pulled me out of the sack,_

 _And they stuck me together with glue._

 _And then I knew what to do_

* * *

00

 _Herr God, Herr Lucifer_

 _Beware_

 _Beware._

* * *

The lawyers come to her, a week after they jail Gendo Ikari.

Rei's in art therapy, dutifully coloring in another stick-figure tableau, when she hears rapid footsteps and raised voices. The other children look up at it, but Rei keeps her head, focusing on keeping her strokes straight and neat.

"Ryoji, she's still recovering—she doesn't need this—"

"She's the only one who was there, she's the only one who can properly testify—"

"She's just a kid, Ryoji, a traumatized, scared kid that you'd be putting on the front line—Jesus Christ, she just got here a few weeks ago, what the _fuck_ were you thinking—"

"I was thinking, Misato, that she's the best witness we have. Neighbors, grocers, mail men who never quite liked passing the house—we both know those aren't real witnesses. And I know she's your patient and you have a responsibility, but I'm just going to talk to her. That's all. If she says no, then that's it, we'll use what we have, but we should at least ask. Please, Misato. Please."

The other children have put their papers down, not even pretending to work as they stare at the door.

Rei, head still bent over her paper, reaches for a pink crayon, begins coloring in the stick-figure child's skirt. At Bethany Base, all of Rei's clothes are standard-issue, hand-me-downs from former patients, carefully clean and starched. She has never cared enough about any particular color to have a preference, but all the children in books seem to care about these matters, and Rei supposes pink is as good a color as any.

After a moment, there's a knock on the door; Maya stands up to open it, and then Misato is standing there, framed in the fluorescent lights.

"Hello, Rei," she says, giving her a small nod. "If you could come with me, please. There's someone waiting for you."

* * *

There's a tall man sitting one of the hard plastic chairs when they enter the waiting room. He looks up when the door opens, and a slow smile breaks over his face when he sees them.

"Misato," he says, standing up.

Misato's mouth is a thin, pressed line as she regards the man. "Go on, Rei," she says, nudging her forward. "I'll leave you two to it, then," she says, and closes the door.

They stand there, facing each for long seconds.

"Please," he says, pulling out a seat for her, "sit down."

She does. They watch each other for a moment, the girl and the man. He is not an old man, Rei observes, certainly younger than any of the scientists who worked for Gendo, but there is grey in his hair and dark, deep circles around his eyes.

"My name is Ryoji Kaji," he says, offering her a hand. "And you're Rei, right? Rei Ayanami. Well. It's a pleasure to meet you, Rei."

Rei stares at his outstretched hand. After a moment, Kaji retracts it.

"So," he says, steepling his hands together as he leans forward, "Rei Ayanami, then. I'm sure Misato's told you about why I'm here today. No?" he says, sighing a little when Rei doesn't respond. "Well, that's her right, I suppose. Not quite what I would have done, but I suppose I'm not the doctor here...I'm here to talk with you today, Rei, because I'm going to be the chief lawyer for the prosecution against Gendo Ikari."

She says nothing.

Kaji stares at the floor, letting out a long, slow breath before continuing.

"They—the police, that is—had been suspicious for a while, you see. NERV's very respected in the medical community, but there have always been rumors—unauthorized experiments, unethical business practices—but until recently, that was all it was. They'd only gotten permission to investigate when all the core staff suddenly went missing, and when they went to search their premises...well, that was when they found you."

Another pause; another long, quiet exhale.

"The trial is next month. We have a strong case, but there's no physical evidence and Ikari has money—with the right lawyer, he could be freed of most charges, even allowed to adopt again. Direct witness testimony would help."

Rei says nothing. Kaji shifts in his seat, gaze expectant, but she makes no reply.

Testimony. They want her to testify.

Rei thinks.

She thinks about testifying, in the abstract, detached way she would consider a science experiment. They are bringing Gendo Ikari in on charges of child abuse, neglect, unethical experimentation and treatment of test subjects. She can see the court already, the large room, the black-shrouded men, oh so many faces all gazing at her, waiting for her to speak.

Suddenly, it is very difficult to breathe.

And then she thinks about Shinji. She thinks about Shinji, and the way he curls in on himself when he speaks, as if ready for rebuke at any moment. She thinks about Asuka, standing there in front of her, hands on her hips as she yells at Rei, screaming at her to just act like a fucking human for once—the irony of the question apparently lost on her, Asuka who works so hard to keep herself from showing any hint of human weakness. She thinks of kind Misato, and she thinks of Maya, of art therapy and the neat tableaus of ideal families lined up on each wall—images Rei has always faithfully duplicated but never quite believed in. Father, mother, child.

She thinks about Gendo Ikari. She thinks of Gendo and of NERV and the place where she had lived as a child, that large empty house that she had always felt like a stranger in, all white, bright rooms and the sharp, lonely tang of disinfectant. She thinks about all that, and she remembers.

Rei does not say anything. Rei meets the eyes of the man across from her, and she waits to see what he will say.

"Will you speak?" he asks her. Sitting there, across from her, with his black suit and sad eyes. Smiling.

And Rei says, her voice soft and rusty from disuse, "yes."

* * *

01

 _There's a stake in your fat black heart_

 _And the villagers never liked you –_

 _Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through._

* * *

They take Gendo Ikari away on Monday.

Shinji knows this because he is there when it happens, the judges proclaim the sentence, fifteen years with chance of parole. Fifteen years. Shinji will be fifteen in a few weeks.

Kaji had come to him before the trial, but Shinji had shaken his head, told him that he had nothing to give. He had thought it was true at the time, at time; Shinji had not seen his father since he was very young, and there is nothing between them, nothing but the blank of years and years of silence. He did not think he could help the prosecution, not with a lack of information, and what was more, he was not sure he would have wanted to.

Hearing Rei speak, he wishes he did.

At the end, he glances at him, sitting there in the dock. Gendo Ikari's face is worn, studiously blank as he meets Shinji's gaze. Shinji stares into the face of his father, the man who had left him to a stranger when he was three, who had hurt Rei for a dead woman's sake, and he wishes he could feel something, anything—anger, hurt, the hatred Asuka and Doctor Akagi seem to expect from him so often—but he can't. Studying his father's face, tired and older than he had expected, lines around his eyes and grey in his hair, Shinji can only dredge up a vague, distant sense of regret. The sense that maybe, in another world, this could have different; that maybe, in another world, this could have all been avoided.

 _Father,_ he thinks, and then looks away.

* * *

They hold group therapy after, on Misato's insistence.

"How are you feeling?"

"Alright," Rei says. It's still a surprise, hearing her speak, but Shinji finds that he likes it, the soft cadence of her words and the careful way she speaks.

"Is there anything you would like to talk about or share?"

Rei shakes her head, and Misato nods.

"Asuka?"

Asuka tosses her hair and shrugs. "Fine. Glad this whole thing is finally over, like Jesus Christ seriously, I was going to go insane if I saw another fucking lawyer. No, I don't want to share-and-care."

Misato nods, face carefully neutral.

"And Shinji?" she asks, turning to him. "How are you feeling?"

"I," Shinji begins, then stops. A barrage of familiar answers come to him: _I'm glad, I'm confused, he deserved it, I didn't know—_

"I don't know," he says. He flushes then, aware of what a stupid answer it is, and keeps his eyes on his feet.

"Is there anything you would like to talk about or share?"

"No."

Misato nods, slow and solemn. "Alright then. Now, for today's activity—"

* * *

He can't sleep that night. He tries to—squeezes his eyes shut and hopes against hope that that will be enough to keep the memories at bay—but the images keep coming back. Rei at the witness's stand, her voice quiet but clear in the silence; Kaji standing up, tall in his charcoal suit and pressed pants, hands folded behind his back as he began to speak; his father sitting there as they pronounced the sentence, not once looking at Shinji as the guards led him away—and Rei, so young then in those photos and so solemn, eyes so dark as she gazed at the camera dressed in his mother's clothes—

He is drowning in memories, and there is only one way out.

Shinji sits up. It's late, far past curfew and far too late to turn on a light. The only illumination the greenish glow of the alarm clock, he reaches under his bed, where his collection of paper rests, and grabs the first piece he can reach—a brochure on parental rights, a small part of his mind notes ironically, but that's alright, that's fine. It doesn't matter anyway, the paper less important than what it will become, the motions familiar and steadying. Bottom to top, edge to edge. Open. Repeat.

When he finishes, he reaches for another piece of paper and begins again.

Valley fold. Mountain fold. Match the edges, smooth down the fold. Repeat. Repeat.

It doesn't quite make it disappear, the hard knot of panic edging its way up his throat, but it helps. And for a few moments, eyes closed and familiar paper between his hands, Shinji can breathe again.

When he finally surfaces, the room is covered in cranes.

On the pillows, spilling over his bed onto the carpet, piled on top of his dresser and his desk—Shinji must have gotten up to put those there, but he cannot remember doing it. He does not count the cranes, but he thinks there must two, three hundred in the room alone, and that from a few hours alone. Across ten years, how many does that account to? How many boons does that equate to, wishes unspent because he did not dare to hope they could be answered?

He thinks, and he looks around the room, the shiny wings and beaks of the cranes gazing back at him. So many, there. What to do with them, now?

He thinks about what Misato said to him, about wishes and using them for something else, and then, suddenly, he _knows_.

* * *

He walks outside, pockets stuffed with cranes. The guard on duty glances up, but seeing it is only Shinji and used to his fits of insomnia, only says, "be back in fifteen minutes" before returning to her magazine.

Shinji nods, and then pads softly down the hall.

Hello, Shinji.

"Hi." He pauses in the doorway of the music room for a moment, but Kaworu only stays there, eyes pale and calm as he hovers several inches above the ground.

"I," Shinji says, then swallows. He takes a step forward, then stops. "I—I came because—the trial was a few days ago, and my father—it's going to be fifteen years, that's my whole life until now, and I'll be thirty then, when he's out, and with everything that happened, everything he did to Rei—well. I don't know if I'd want to anyways. And I just thought, I've been making them all my life, and I don't know, I thought—here," he says, reaching in his pocket and thrusting out a handful. There are a dozen, two dozen of them perched on his hand, and they are tiny _tiny,_ folded from gum wrappers and picked-up receipts, shiny and smelling of spearmint.

Kaworu glances at the cranes, but he says nothing.

"I don't know if it'll work—it's an old story, and I never believed it, but then, I never believed in ghosts either...But I was talking with Misato, now that I know he—he probably won't see me again, and I thought, maybe...and I still don't think I believe it, not really, but you've been stuck for months and I know you never wanted to be here, they try not to talk about it, but you hear things, and I just thought, that you might want..."

He stops talking and holds them up in the light, eyes pleading.

The world narrows. For one moment, everything is very simple: no dead mothers, no missing fathers, only this, a small room and the scent of dust, him and Kaworu and this, the gift he is holding out between them.

No, Kaworu says, in the smiling way he always speaks, shaking his head slightly. Thank you, but no. I do not need your wishing, Shinji Ikari.

He stares at Kaworu. "But—"

Kaworu smiles, and there is fondness in it, the type of emotion Shinji has never quite experienced.

You should save your wishes for the living.

* * *

02

 _Out of the ash_

 _I rise with my red hair_

 _And I eat men like air._

* * *

Kaji comes for Rei the week after Gendo Ikari is captured, and Asuka wants to hate him for it.

She wants to hate him for a million things—because he is here and knows that she is here, this stone-and-mortar monstrosity Asuka has always hated; because he is still the same, tall and unshaven and unfairly handsome; because even after everything, all his words about boundaries and inappropriate attachment, he is the one to come here, for her. Not for her, even—for Rei, and she wants to hate him for that too.

But she can't. And she wants to hate that too, but somehow, she cannot quite manage it. It is almost a physical thing, as if all the anger has leeched away, run out on her suddenly, leaving her tired and so very small.

"Asuka?" Misato asks. Her voice is soft, kind. _She's fucking him,_ Asuka tells herself, covering her ears with the pillow, squeezing her eyes shut against the cloth, _she can't tell you what to do, she's fucking him, she has no right._

"Go away," she tries to yell, but the words, when they come out, are the barest scratch of a whisper.

After a while, Misato leaves, and Asuka lies there, eyes squeezed shut as she curls beneath her blankets.

Asuka had been fine before Kaji came here, and she will be fine after he leaves. She wants to believe that, tries to make herself believe it, repeating the words like a mantra, hoping through force of repetition to make the words real—but Asuka, whatever else her faults, has never been stupid.

* * *

The trial is on Sunday.

Misato tells them they do not have to go—tells them, in fact, that they should not go—but they do, anyways: Rei because she is testifying, Shinji because it is his father on trial, Asuka partially because she knows that it will make Misato angry and partially because she is genuinely curious about the case, what it is that can compel to Rei finally speak.

Asuka goes. She listens.

When Rei speaks, her voice is soft and low, but there is something sharp about her nonetheless, an edge couched in the quiet timbre of her words. And Asuka—Asuka still does not like Rei, does not think she will ever like Rei, but seeing her there, standing there, she cannot help but respect her.

It is a long trial. The prosecuting lawyer stands, speaks; the defense lawyer rallies, stands, speaks. Witnesses are called, come, speak, go. Next to her, Shinji is pale, hands gripping the sides of his seat as though clinging to a lifeline. But he says nothing and he does not look away and that, Asuka finds herself thinking to her annoyance, is a kind of strength, too.

There is a moment during the trial, when Gendo Ikari looks up and for just one moment, looks in Asuka's eyes. And there, for a moment, is everything she has tried to ignore or deny; there, for a moment, is every piece of her laid out bare and bloody, as though with one glance of his eyes, Gendo see through it all, straight to the very core of her.

Asuka looks away first.

* * *

In the end, Kaji finds her, because of course he always does.

She's sitting on her bed, blankets wrapped around her shoulders like protection, when she hears the knock on the door, the soft call of "Asuka?"

Asuka doesn't get up. It's not necessary; it's hardly as if she would have to let him in, without any locks on the doors here.

A moment later, the door slowly opens, and Ryoji Kaji walks in.

Asuka does not look up.

"Asuka," he says. "I think we should talk."

He's taller than her; he'd been taller than her then too, back in those golden-tinged days before college had started, and yet here he is again, looming over her. She had hoped, somehow, that this at least would have changed in the interval, that she would have been able to look him eye-to-eye at last.

"Alright," Asuka says. "Let's go."

* * *

They go into one of the intake room, the walls white and bare. Asuka sits down on one side of the table; Kaji takes the seat across from her, and for a moment as they stare at each other, it is almost like her first day at Bethany Bay again, Doctor Akagi's pen tapping her notebook as Asuka crossed her arms and refused to speak.

"So," Kaji says. "It's been a while."

"Seven months," she says, and she hates herself for the speed with which she answers, how immediately the answer comes to her tongue. "I thought you said you weren't going to see me again."

Kaji shrugs. "Circumstances change. And...when I said that, Asuka, I didn't mean it like that. You know that."

"Do I know what." It's better, like this. If she looks straight ahead and keeps her mind very, very blank, then he is almost not there, none of this quite real or happening.

"You know I didn't want to hurt you."

And there is something about the way he says those words, the earnest way he is gazing at her that brings some of Asuka's anger back, makes her finally look him fully in the eye.

"You left," she says, forcing her voice to be steady, calm, head held high as she meets his eyes. "You took me in, told me I wasn't going to be alone, and then you told me I couldn't stay."

Her hands, curled into fists on her knees, are very still.

In his chair, Kaji shifts, fingers tapping against his leg. Searching, Asuka knows, for a cigarette.

"I know that," he says finally. "And I'm very sorry I had to leave you Asuka, I never wanted to, but at the time it felt like the right thing to do. The best thing to do—yes, it was," he says when Asuka snorts. "Perhaps it wasn't, not in the long run, but I knew it wasn't good either for you to stay with me. You wanted me to be something I couldn't be, and being around me was only making that worse. You were fourteen, Asuka. Even if I wanted to, it would have been unconscionable for me to give you what you wanted."

 _Fourteen isn't that young,_ Asuka thinks but does not say. Not so young that you cannot understand the subtext behind words, the way her father looked at her mother's doctor and never her mother. Not so young that you cannot kill yourself. "So you abandoned me, instead."

"Yes," he says. "Yes, I did, and in retrospect, it was a terrible idea and I won't try to excuse it, not to you, but you must believe me, I did it because I loved you, Asuka. Not in the way you wanted, maybe, but I did. I stopped being your guardian because I loved you Asuka, and I couldn't hurt you in that way. Because," he says, and it is so terrible, the way he says it, as though the sadness in his eyes could somehow make all the lonely months go away, "you thought you had to give me something for me to you love, and you didn't. You never had to."

"I never thought that," she says, sitting a little straighter. "I never thought I had to whore myself out or give you whatever so you wouldn't kick me out; _I_ was the one who wanted something from you."

"And would you have really wanted that, in the end?"

He's talking about Rei. She knows that, just as well as she knows that it's a low blow, the exact opposite of a fair comparison or playing by the rules. Asuka wants to stand up at it, wants to protest, tell Kaji that it would have been nothing like that, she was nothing like Rei and would not have turned out like her, stronger and better than any mere doll-girl—

But then she thinks again. She thinks of Rei, and those first few days when at Bethany Bay, when Asuka was all mute defiance and an amorphous anger seething into all directions, and she thinks of the first time she noticed her, the pale-haired girl watching with quiet, dark eyes. She thinks of Rei, the small shifts of her movement, the blank hollows of her eyes whenever Maya or Misato spoke to her— _like some dumb lost ghost,_ she'd thought derisively at the time, before she had known there were ghosts in Bethany Bay.

Not hollow she would learn later, but stripped bare, all excess cut away until all that was left was the cold, condensed core of survival.

And then she thinks of the trial. Rei standing there, small and pale among so many black-robed men, armored in nothing but flats and a simple white dress as she looked Gendo Ikari in the eyes. She thinks of Rei standing at the witness stand, spine unnaturally straight, eyes pale as ice, the white of her dress almost blinding in the fluorescent light and marble tiles. In the middle of the floor, she had been such a small, still figure that Asuka, for one moment, had wondered if she would even be heard, the room so large and her voice surely rusty from months of disuse—but when Rei spoke, her voice was clear and unwavering. Quiet yes, but steady, level even as she spoke of silence and side effects and long, lonely hours in locked rooms, waiting for some—any—sign of life at all—

Gendo had never touched Rei, too wary of uncontrolled variables contaminating data, but there were many things you could do without touching a person. Asuka knows that, now.

Kaji is still watching her. He isn't saying anything, and there is no twitch of his expression, no quirk of his mouth that would give away what he is feeling. He's waiting for her, Asuka knows, giving her time to come to the same conclusion he's already arrived at. For a moment, irritation flares up at that—anger at the fact that even after everything, all the books she has read and the college classes, this is how things stand between them—but just as quickly it dies.

She breathes in, out.

"Asuka?"

"Yeah," she says, staring down at her laps, hands clenched against her legs. "Yeah, okay, I get it, _fine."_ Because Kaji is right of course, damn him. He always is.

Kaji says nothing for a moment. Asuka forces herself to not look up, to focus on the denim scratchiness of her skirt and the faint lines her fingers are digging half-moons against her thighs.

"Asuka," he begins.

And then, very slowly, he leans forward and kisses her—a chaste kiss, nothing but a faint touch of lips against her forehead. Asuka closes her eyes, making herself remember it, the desperate mix of anger terror she'd felt then, vowing to never forgive him while pleading in all her dreams for him to come back.

The anger is still there, tucked in the same corner where she had last tucked it, but it is different now. Faded, fainter than before. Embers, instead of the inferno it had once been, and Asuka cannot summon the energy to stoke it into life again.

She opens her eyes. She meets Kaji's gaze, and she does not flinch because whoever else she is, she is still herself, Asuka Langley Sohyru, and she will not run from this.

"And me?" she asks, voice quiet. "Where am I going after this?"

"Well, Asuka," he asks, tilting his head to one side, "what do you want?"

* * *

They're sitting outside, dressed in fresh sundresses as they sit on the steps of Bethany Bay. Asuka's dress is yellow with ribbons winding around the straps, a full sun in the summer air; Rei's is blue, a flowing, ankle-length stretch of cloth undoubtedly bought by Misato. The day is bright and hot, blue sky scattered with clouds, and Shinji Ikari is still not there.

Well. Technically, Kaji is not here either, almost an hour past the time he had set for them, but that is understandable—Kaji is an adult, with mountains of paperwork to fill out for Asuka and Rei's new foster home, and so although it is annoying, it is understandable that he would be late. Shinji has no such excuse.

Asuka sighs, raising her head to stare at upward. It's odd—when she first arrived at Bethany Bay, she had hated everything about the place, but now, she finds the idea of leaving strange. Something about the way the steps meet the sidewalk, the arrangement of the trees against the stone walls—Asuka doesn't know, she's not a poet. But. Nonetheless.

Idly, Asuka reaches into the pack of Hi-Chew in her lap and takes out a piece, popping the candy into her mouth and dutifully chewing.

She glances at Rei, still sitting as before, hands in her lap as she stares straight ahead. Her posture is precisely, almost painfully straight and when she blinks, there is a studied, deliberate quality to the gesture. Once, it had unnerved her, the lack of affect that pervaded every move Rei made. It's still unsettling on some subconscious, visceral level—and yet. Looking at Rei now, with everything she now knows, Asuka wonders why she had ever hated Rei so passionately and single-mindedly. She'd been stupider then, she supposes. Kids so often were.

On a whim, she picks up the pack of Hi-Chew, and holds it out to Rei.

"Here," she says. Rei glances at Asuka, then at the bag, and then blinks once, as if uncertain how to process the situation. "Take one."

Rei blinks, and when she looks at Asuka, there is the faintest amount of surprise in her eyes.

Asuka huffs.

"Look," she says, "I don't know when Kaji and Shinji are going to finally get their asses over here or what, but on statistical probability, it should probably be sometime pretty soon, and I've got a whole fucking bag of these to get through before one of the staff comes to bitch at me for eating outside of meals or what the fuck, so you should just help me and take one. I'm not going to offer twice."

Rei stares at her. Asuka crosses her arms, refusing to look away, silently livid at the blush spreading over her face like wildfire.

And then very slowly, Rei smiles.

It isn't much of a smile—uncertain, as if she is copying something she has only seen in images before—but it's a start.

"Okay," she says. "Thank you."

Asuka shrugs, looking away as Rei reaches over and picks out a piece of candy. Her face is still burning, and to cover it up, she reaches down to adjust her sandals.

"What the _hell_ is that Shinji doing, anyways?"

"Packing, I suppose," Rei says, and though she's probably right, it still doesn't excuses him. They all knew, after all, that they would be leaving today and while Rei and Asuka are sitting outside and getting steadily burnt, Shinji is nowhere to be seen.

Men, Asuka thinks. All the same.

Or perhaps it was simply Shinji—Shinji, who has always been careful with decisions and who has never liked change. When Dr. Akagi first broached the idea of transitioning to foster care, Shinji had asked if he could instead return to his teacher. Misato, originally uneasy on the idea of releasing any of them at all, had frowned, but the need for rooms for the influx of new intakes had eventually won and she had signed Shinji's release form. And so they all going today, the three of them bundling into Kaji's car and heading for the country—Shinji to his old teacher while Rei and Asuka stay nearby, with a former professor of Kaji's, an older woman apparently who, according to Kaji, will be more than happy to them in. It's a nice place, Kaji says, lots of mountains and trees and there's a college nearby, too. She'll be able to enroll if she wants.

Asuka isn't sure about that. She misses it, yes, the challenge of academia, the brilliant thrill of having classmates admire her mark, the sharp satisfaction of winning a particular professors' smiles during seminar discussions, and yet...

It would be nice, Asuka thinks privately, to put that aside for just a while. To not have, at least for a little while, all that burden of being upon her and to just be. Sometime where, if she wants, she can just relax for a while.

She's still wary—for all that she has (mostly) forgiven Kaji, trust is still something that does not come easy to her, and she cannot quite fathom the idea of someone who would do this for nothing, take in a pair of damaged teenagers for no other motive than simple kindness. There are a million questions, a thousand unknowns and variables unaccounted that could spell disaster, and Asuka knows from experience to be wary of assurances.

But it is a bright day, sun high and wind brisk against her skin and as she closes her eyes and leans against the stair railing, for just a moment, it is so easy to believe.

And that, of course, is the moment the doors swings open and Shinji Ikari comes stumbling out.

"I'm sorry I'm so sorry!" he cries, almost tripping over his suitcase in his haste. His shirt collar is unbuttoned and there's a dust in his hair, as though he'd just come out from digging underneath a table. "I was going, and then—oh no, you haven't been waiting all this time, have you? Ohmygod, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—"

And it is odd, because the scene is so familiar—Shinji here, eyes cartoonishly wide as he trips over himself with desperate guilt—and yet. Watching him now, Asuka can only sigh, a vague, soft feeling settling in her chest as she grips his elbow.

Shinji freezes at the touch, and the expression on his face as he turns to Asuka could almost be comical if it wasn't so pathetic.

"Stupid Shinji," she mutters, but there is affection in it, a quiet thing softening the edges of the insult. "Hurry up, can't you? Everyone's waiting."

* * *

04

On the second floor of Bethany Bay, Misato stands in a hallway, hands folded behind her back as she gazes through the full-length window onto the house grounds. Below her, two small figures sit on the front steps, the morning sun casting them matching shadows.

Misato stands there, and she watches.

She watches as Shinji Ikari stumbles out of the front door, all frantic apologies and gangly teenage limbs, and she watches as Asuka approaches him, fondness barely hidden underneath her scowling anger. She watches as Rei, still sitting on the steps, carefully unwraps a piece of candy, the ghost of a smile on her lips as she observes them. She is watching when the black government car finally pulls up, Ryoji Kaji walking with a towel around his shoulders an unlit cigarette between his teeth, the ice cream in his hands an apology for his lateness, and she watches as they run to him, in that moment three ordinary children on a hot summer day.

She watches as they load the car, Asuka bickering with Ryoji over who gets to sit shotgun; watches as they load in, three teenage bodies and their cargo crowding the small car; and she is watching when the car rounds the corner, disappearing into the dark of the mountains.

Misato stands there, as the light outside slowly turning from to pink to purple to black.

Downstairs, a door opens. Shoes click-clacking down tile, distant greetings, the clink of keys being exchanged—the murmur of night staff coming in to replace the day.

Misato stands at the window, face blank and unmoving.

"Well?" she says, nodding as she slowly turns around. "How is it?"

Perched on the top of one of the banister colonnades, Kaworu smiles and nods, one, two times.

It is not over. It is not done. But another thing – like the first flowers peeking through snow – has begun.

And that, Misato knows, is a start.


End file.
